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and Germany especially, “ the pole-clipt vineyards,” 
as Shakspeare rightly designates them, are always dis¬ 
appointing objects to travellers who are unprepared for 
their appearance under culture. The vines are trained 
to poles, seldom more than a yard high, and all their 
wild luxuriance is pruned, the more to enhance the 
size and flavour of the fruit. In the latter country 
they are constantly seen mingling their trellised 
branches, laden with translucent clusters, the very 
image of plenty, with the ruined fortresses and ba¬ 
ronial castles which overhang the Rhine; and there, 
though still suffering from die pruning knife, they look 
well from contrast — most assuredly they do so in 
poetry: — 
“ Above the frequent feudal towers, 
Through green leaves lift their walls of gray, 
And many a rock which steeply lours, 
And noble arch in proud decay, 
Look o’er this vale of vintage bowers.” 
The earliest authentic history we have of the cultiva¬ 
tion of this tree is in the book of Genesis, where we 
are told, “ Noah began to be a husbandman, and he 
planted a vineyard.” If, however, we might trust to 
poetry, we should find that it was of yet prior date; for 
